Biden planning September trip to Iowa

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Biden planning September trip to Iowa

(CNN) — Vice President Joe Biden will travel to Iowa next month to deliver the keynote speech at Sen. Tom Harkin’s annual steak fry, an aide to the vice president — and potential candidate for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination — told CNN’s Jim Acosta on Sunday.

An Iowa Democratic official also confirmed Biden’s upcoming visit to Harkin’s steak fry, which typically attracts a high-profile crowd of national Democrats. Its setting in the first-in-the-nation caucus state makes it a natural stop for potential White House hopefuls.

A Biden aide said the stop in Iowa has long been a commitment on the vice president’s calender after he was unable to attend last year’s steak fry.

The vice president’s trip was first reported by The New York Times.

Biden has not yet said whether he’ll make a third bid for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, though his schedule this year has hinted at where his aspirations may lie.

In May, he spoke to a gathering of Democrats in South Carolina, site of the first-in-the-South primary contest in presidential nominating years. And later this month, he’ll help raise money for New Hampshire’s Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan, though the event itself won’t take place in the first-in-the-nation primary state, but rather in neighboring Maine.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, considered the Democrats’ top pick for the presidential nomination in 2016 if she chooses to run, has not visited any early voting states since she left her post at the State Department in February. Like Biden, she has not said whether she’ll make another bid for the White House.

And while Clinton hasn’t yet traveled to Iowa in her new role as a private citizen, a group that works to elect Democratic women to public office held a “Madam President” event there this weekend with Clinton as the unspoken target.

Plenty of Republicans have visited Iowa, including Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania this weekend for an evangelical gathering.

Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana have also visited the Hawkeye State over the past several months.